


Stare politely right on through

by EmmaArthur



Series: Whumptober 2019 [7]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, Not really whump, PTSD, Whumptober, i don't even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 05:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaArthur/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: When Alex calls Isobel out for isolating herself, she finds out that he's the pot and she's the kettle.





	Stare politely right on through

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober day 7: **Isolation**. Also fourth in my Alex&Isobel series Lines of Fear and Blame.
> 
> This isn't even really whump, and I don't know where it came from. I just let the prompt guide me.
> 
> [PTSD, depression, mentions of abuse, mentions of war, brief self-harm]

“You're isolating yourself,” Alex says, dropping his bag loudly on the table. Since his discharge from the military a few weeks ago, he's taken to spending random amounts of time working on his computer at Isobel's dining table, while she reads or watches TV.

She looks over from the couch, wrapping herself tighter in the comforter. “I'm not!” she protests.

Alex comes over to sit down in the armchair, acting like he owns the place. Isobel doesn't mind. Anything that makes her feel less awful about this house is fine with her. “How long has it been since you left the house?”

Isobel actually has to think about it. “I went shopping on Tuesday,” she says.

“For groceries,” Alex rolls his eyes. “Which took all of half an hour. And it's Saturday.”

“I just don't have any reason to go out!”

“Go to the Crashdown. I don't know, even the Wild Pony. You know Michael will be there.”

“I'm tired,” Isobel whines.

Alex frowns this time. “Isobel, just how much are you sleeping?”

“I don't know,” she shrugs. “It's hard to sleep at night. So it's hard to get up in the morning. So I don't.”

“It's five PM, you've been on this couch all day.”

Isobel straightens up a little, suddenly feeling self-conscious, but she catches herself. Since when does she care what Alex thinks? “So what if I have?” she asks with a shrug.

Alex sighs. “You're an adult, but I think you know this isn't healthy. You're depressed.”

“I'm just tired.”

“Yeah, exactly. You're tired enough that you can't get out of bed, that you barely bother to eat, let alone cook for yourself. You haven't even put on make-up in days.”

“Why on Earth do you care about my make-up?” Isobel frowns, genuinely a little surprised, but mostly wanting to evade.

“I know what it's for,” Alex shrugs. “Armor. So the world can't touch what's inside.”

“That's profound,” Isobel rolls her eyes, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Why do you think I liked the emo style so much? Though I got to wear real armor in the field and believe me, it doesn't protect you all that much.”

“You were the emo kid?” Isobel thinks about it. “Yes, I remember now. You had this godawful sweater with, what was is, wolves on fire on it?” She remembers, of course. She may have had a lot on her plate back then, but the one gay kid in the whole school, who got picked on by pretty much everyone, was hard to miss.

Alex pinches the bridge of his nose. “My point is, when you stop caring about those things when you always have, that's when you need to worry.”

“You were Liz's friend, right?” Isobel continues, ignoring him. “Wait, didn't she go out with Valenti?”

“Why?”

“Wasn't he a huge bully? Like, the worst homophobic jock in the whole school?”

Alex stares at her. “So you remember that, but not me?”

“I have all those holes in my memory,” Isobel pretends to whine. “Why did she go out with him if she was your friend?”

“Why wouldn't she?” Alex asks, and he looks genuinely confused. Isobel gapes for a moment. Does he really not see the problem? “To go back to the subject at hand, you need to go out.”

“Fine,” Isobel says with a pout. “I'll go to the Crashdown. I'll call Liz and hang out with her or something.” Maybe she can at least get to the bottom of this.

“Alex told me.”

“You've talked to Alex?”

“Yes, we've become...friends, I guess.”

“No, I mean...that's good, but you saw him recently?” Liz asks.

“He was at my place this afternoon,” Isobel says. “Why?”

“No one's seen Alex in weeks except for Kyle,” Liz answers. “He says Alex spends most night at his father's bunker. But he keeps texting that he's too tired to come here and hang out.”

Isobel frowns. “I knew he was avoiding Michael, but−”

“Michael told me there was nothing between them, that they were over,” Maria says.

“Well if it's the case, I don't think Alex got the memo. And to be honest, neither did Michael,” Isobel shrugs. It's not that she doesn't care, or that she thinks Maria is bad for Michael. But the closest she gets to Alex, the more she can see the same longing and pain she's been seeing in Michael's eyes for years. Those two are terrible at talking, at solving their issues, but they're not over each other, far from it. And Michael can't build something healthy with Maria if he's still secretly hanging onto Alex.

Maria opens her mouth and closes it a few time, as if grasping for an answer. “I can't say I'm truly surprised,” she says eventually. She sounds really sad about it. Isobel can't tell if she's sad to realize her and Michael can't truly work, or that she's lost a friend in the process.

“Anyway, I guess Alex avoiding you two turned into avoiding me and Max,” Liz says. “And I had so much on my plate that I barely noticed.” She shakes her head sadly. “I guess I've been really out of touch with things. I'm surprised he talks to you, though,” she adds to Isobel. “I didn't think you knew each other that well.”

“We didn't,” Isobel answers. She hesitates a bit before deciding for the truth. “I went to him. Kyle thought he could help with my...blackouts.”

“And has he?” Liz asks, her face open and worried. Isobel decides that just for that, she'll tell Liz. She's never had a friend like her before, someone who truly cares about her. Liz was the only one to ask what she wanted, what she needed, when they were holding Noah, despite Noah being Rosa's killer.

“Yes,” Isobel nods. “He's helped me understand what they are at least, what triggers them. It helps. It helps to have someone to talk to, too. Someone who's been there.”

“Alex−” Maria starts, surprised. Liz frowns too, and they exchange a look.

Isobel recoils. She didn't realize that they didn't know about Alex's PTSD, or she wouldn't have said anything. It's not her place to tell them.

Except Alex doesn't really seem to have other friends, beside Kyle who figured it out on his own. Which reminds her of the question on her mind. If Liz and Maria are, and were, Alex's friends, shouldn't they know more about him? Shouldn't they _care_ more? Isobel has never had anyone but Max and Michael, and Noah, even if she'd like to erase that from her mind. She's not actually sure how friendships are really supposed to work. But she always thought that a true friend would be better than her mother's bridge partners, who spread rumors and lies just for the thrill of it, of her father's golf friends, who clasp each other on the back but never talk about anything important.

“Of course, we should have known,” Maria says. “Losing his leg has to have been traumatic, and God knows what he saw overseas. But he never said anything.”

Isobel looks between her and Liz. They really seem to be discovering this. Don't they know anything about Jesse Manes' abuse? Alex hasn't told her much yet, but he did say he had PTSD long before he even went to war. Did none of his friend know?

“I have a question for you,” she says to Liz.

“Yes?”

“Why did you go out with Valenti?”

“What?” Liz frowns. “What do you mean?”

“In high school,” Isobel clarifies. “Why did you go out with him, even though he was bullying your best friend?”

Liz opens her mouth, and closes it again.

“Come on,” Isobel pushes. “Even I noticed he was horrible to Alex.”

“It wasn't−” Maria starts, seemingly ready to defend her friend.

“Alex said he didn't mind,” Liz says.

Isobel blinks in surprise. “And you believed that?”

“I−” Liz starts. “I see how it looks, now. Back then...yeah, I guess I believed him.”

“Did he also tell you he was bruised all over because he was clumsy?” Isobel asks. That was Michael's excuse, for a while, the months he spent in his last foster home before he started sleeping in his truck. She and Max saw through it right away, of course, but Michael refused to say anything about his living situation.

She can see, now, ways that they could have helped him back then. They were so scared of any authorities, of being discovered, that they let Michael lie to them.

“He tried,” Maria answers. “It didn't hold for very long. But he made us swear not to tell anyone. He said no one would believe him anyway, not against his father's word.”

“Sometimes I wish we'd tried anyway,” Liz says. “Maybe Jesse Manes wouldn't have done so much damage if he'd been caught back then.”

_Damage_ . Is she even thinking of Alex, or just Caulfield? Isobel wonders. No, she's being too mean. Liz is someone who cares for her friends. She's just a little oblivious sometimes.

“For what it's worth, I think you should try now,” Isobel says. “To help Alex, I mean. He could use some friends.”

“I talked to Liz and Maria yesterday,” Isobel tells Alex the next day, when they've settled into their usual position, her on the couch and him at the table.

“Good,” he answers.

“They said they haven't seen you in weeks.”

Alex winces. “I've been busy,” he says.

“I think you've been making yourself busy because you're avoiding them,” Isobel says. “You've made plenty of time for me.”

“You needed me,” Alex shrugs, like it's the most natural thing in the world. He's been shrugging off all of Isobel's admittedly awkward attempts at thanking him. He doesn't seem to think he deserves to be thanked.

“And they don't? I get why you're avoiding Michael, but Liz lost Max, too, and she's been having a pretty hard time even since he's back, with how tired he is and the whole thing with Rosa.”

Alex looks away, guilt plain on his face. “I know,” he says. “I just−”

“You don't want to admit to her that you're not doing well either,” Isobel states. That's what she's finally figured out, talking with Liz earlier. “And it's getting too hard to hide.”

Where Isobel is sleeping all day and foregoing doing her makeup, Alex is spending whole nights at his father's bunker and he has bags the size of suitcases under his eyes.  He's trying to hide from the nightmares, from the thoughts, to keep himself busy so he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he's on the verge of collapsing. 

Isobel catches his eyes, briefly.  “ Now who's isolating  themselves ?” 

A lex looks down. “We're doing a shitty job at holding each other up, aren't we?” he mutters.

“Oh? I thought we were doing well enough,” Isobel says. “You're the one who keeps telling me that we won't heal in one day.”

“Does this feel like healing to you?”

Isobel bites her lip. “I don't know,” she says. “I don't know what it's supposed to feel like. Before all this, I thought I was fine. I had my life together, I had a husband and a house and money, I couldn't understand why it always felt wrong. And now? Yeah, I feel a lot worse. But at least I'm not living a lie anymore.”

Alex doesn't answer. 

“I need to get back to work,” he says after a moment, shaking himself.

“No, come here,” Isobel pats the space on the couch beside her. “You're always working.”

“There's a lot to do,” Alex refuses, powering up his laptop. “This stuff isn't going to write itself.”

“What are you even doing?” Isobel asks. “You've found a new job?”

“Ah, I wondered when you were going to ask. I'm just going through the files we found in Caulfield.”

“Still? It's been months.”

“There's a lot,” Alex shrugs. “Leads to follow, all over the country. I've been listing facilities, employee records, funding hypotheses, everything I can get my hands on.”

“You're doing all that for us?” Isobel asks. “Why?”

Alex meets her eyes, suddenly solemn. “My father hurt your family so much. I have to try to make it right.”

“Nothing will ever make it right,” Isobel says.

Alex averts his eyes. “I know. But I have to try.”

“No, I meant you're not responsible for what your father did,” Isobel corrects. “Alex, you've been telling me that I shouldn't feel responsible for what Noah made me do for weeks. You go out of your way to remind me almost every day. How can you not see that what your father did is not on you?”

Isobel can see the surprise and shock go through Alex's face, and then the shame. Before Noah, she'd never have recognized that particular expression, she thinks. She knew shame, but not like that. Not that deep inner disgust that eats you up inside. She scratches her arm, wincing when she feels a scab tear off under her nails.

Alex's hands have turned into fists on his lap, tight enough that his nails must be pressing against his skin. He doesn't look at her.

“It's not the same,” he says.

“Of course it's not the fucking same!” Isobel exclaims. “Noah used _my _body to murder people! He was lying to me for years and I never ever suspected!”

“Exactly,” Alex says. “You have no reason to feel guilty, because you didn't _know_!”

“And you did? You didn't even know we were aliens.”

“I knew my father was a monster. And I didn't do anything about it.”

“What could you have done?” Isobel frowns. “You were a kid.”

“Not in the last ten years, I wasn't. I let him run free while he was _torturing_ your people.” Alex's voice breaks. “I was overseas to fight terrorists, and it turns out that I was mostly killing innocent people and the real terrorist was back home. Was my own father.”

He coughs roughly, swallowing tears, and Isobel wonders, not for the first time, what really happened to him in Iraq. Innocent people? But she doesn't ask. She knows better. Maybe someday Alex will share, maybe he won't. It's not her place to force him.

Instead, she stands up and walks over to him. “Can I touch you?” she asks, mirroring his actions from the times he's helped her come back from a dissociation episode or a nightmare.

Alex keeps staring right ahead, his face blank like every time he works so hard to hide his emotions, but he nods minutely after a while.

Isobel slides into the chair beside him. She just keeps an arm on his shoulder until she can feel him uncoil slightly from his tense position, then she pulls him to her, and he leans into the hug. “I wasn't your fault,” she murmurs. She hopes that's what he needs to hear right now.

Alex's tears are the only answer she gets.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a bit chaotic, but I hope you liked it!


End file.
